About book Battle Angel Alita, Volume 01: Rusty Angel (1995)
One of the best action/sci-fi ever made ; hands down. But I bet you have heard that a million times already. Someone telling you title A is the best manga ever and stuff. Well, for all it’s worth, I have read a million comic books and manga and this tops almost everything.ART SECTION: 10The setting is post apocalyptic steampunk / cyberpunk and it was made to look splendidly uneasy to the eye. Every area is drawn claustrophobically, dark, dirty and cruel, with machinery ruling the lives of poor and helpless people. The mangaka did an excellent work in building the atmosphere and getting you in the mood of the story. The characters are also drawn great, with clothes and facial language that easily depicts their (mostly grim) feelings. The action scenes are also blood boilingly awesome, cybernetic abominations next to imposing martial artists and mad scientists, accompanied with a lot of info on scientific and martial arts theories and explanations around everything and anyone, so you hardly believe something is unexplained magic. Even the dialogues themselves are exceptional, full of philosophy and moral dilemmas, angst and horror. An amazing work, even if it’s not the best drawn world ever. STORY SECTION: 10It is the story of a cyborg girl named Gally (Alita in the English dub) who is found trashed on a scrap yard and taken as an adoptive daughter by a local mechanic. It starts very typically, with her having amnesia and the world being full of criminals she has to fend off, but very quickly turns to an epic adventure of self-acknowledgement, love, sadness, madness, and horrid around the folly of Man. I tell you, the themes of the story change every one volume or two, thus you never feel it repeats to the point of boredom. It changes from bounty hunting, to sports, to police enforce, to mystery around the meaning of life. I have never encountered such a well thought and well paced story in my life that doesn’t drag or repeat to this great form.By the way, the mangaka is currently making the continuation of the story and the second half of the last volume of this series no longer counts as canon, as he twisted things around to allow continuation. I thought at first that by continuing the story he would have killed the magic with pointless extra fuss. Turns out the story there became even better!!! This is simply unheard of.CHARACTER SECTION: 10Now that is what I call developed characters. Besides the lead girl who matures and develops in ways unimaginable by most mangaka out there, even most of the secondary cast are equally looked upon, and they also receive a great amount of attention. You will hardly find useless mooks in this story. Everyone in here is given immersion through religion, philosophy, and human pathos, making them all feel great.ENJOYMENT & OVERALL SECTION: 10You will probably think I am some newbie fanboy giving 10’s like candy but it’s not true. There is nothing wrong in this manga. You just can’t find something to lower the score. Everything is done amazingly, from the great story, to the in-depth characters, to the epicly battles and horrid of a world gone mad on cybernatics. And don’t miss the sequel either! It worths it in spades.
Title: Battle Angel Alita: Rusty AngelAuthor: Yukito KishiroSeries: Battle Angel Alita, Volume One (collects comics 1-8)Genre: Manga Setting: A postapocalyptic United States, with lots of cyborgs.Reason for Reading: This is book 15 of my 50 book challenge! I read this one specifically because I got it in the book swap I hosted this weekend, and I've been wanting to try more manga.Relevance to the Project: I learned a few interesting things on this read. Most manga is printed to be read right to left, opening the book from what in the US would be considered the "back cover." However, some manga printed for American audiences is "flipped" so that it read left to right, "front" to "back." This was one example of that.Additionally, there is an interesting question about how sounds are portrayed in the manga. Manga, like American comics, often includes noises (the Japanese equivalent of Bam! and Pow!). Often in the original manga these are drawn as kanji and kana and worked into the image in (I am told) beautiful ways. In the case of this manga they were translated phonetically into English. So I didn't get to see the kanji but I did get to see what the writer thought the noises sounded like.Finished In: Hours. A quick and interesting read. Pages: 248Copyright Date: 1995 Cover: A winged cyborg, female and with a sad expression on her face, leans over a pile of junk. Beautiful drawing.Themes and Triggers: Robots! Robots robots robots! Also, gladiators, war, babies, murder, and some eating of brains.The Art: Intricate, black and white. Here's a sample frame.First Frame: Shows a scrap yard, making scrap yard rumbles and thrums. There are smokestacks in the background. A small box in the lower left reads "The scrap yard. Home to the rubbish and refuse -- both human and non -- of Tiphares, a utopia above the clouds."Favorite Quote: Villain: "Everyone lives by eating other lives! People plunder from the weak for their benefit everyday!" Heroine in response: "You're so wrong. I walk in faith! The faith that we choose who we want to be... and grow into that identity, ugly or beautiful!" I thought that was surprisingly profound for a graphic novel about a cyborg.Best part: This book was surprisingly deep for being a comic book about cyborgs.Worst part: I kind of wonder what I was missing with the action sound kanji, now that I know it exists.Imaginary Theme Song: Here is the theme song from the anime. Nothing imaginary about it! And here is the trailer for the anime which can give you a bit of an idea what the manga looks like (although the manga is in black and white it's visually similar otherwise).Grade: B+Recommended for: Fans of manga. Anyone who likes the cover - the art is quite interesting and beautiful. Related Reads: I'm still getting started here but I'd like to try a manga of Ghost in the Shell, since I enjoy the anime. I picked up a few other manga at the book swap - Yokkaiden and Loveless. I welcome additional manga recommendations!
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I have to wonder who curates comics for the Bowdoin college library, where, if you've been following my recent reading, I've been semi-snowed in (well into my hometown of Brunswick, Maine) for a few days. The whole comics selection made up only a couple shelves of one dimly lit bookcase, and yet, there's an entire nine-volume run of this particular manga tucked in there. Which was pretty great as I've heard this talked up in a couple very different places. And so rapidly read the first volume.I have kind of a love/hate fascination with the conventions of manga. This embodies lots of cliches -- a cybernetic girl is found in the scrap heap beneath a floating city (very stratified society here) and repaired, her only clue to her past are finely-honed fighting reflexes. Predictably, this plays out literally as a series of kinetic, violetn fight sequences (issues numbered Fight 1, Fight 2, etc), but then the sub-titles tell a different story ("Responsibility", "Compassion") which outline a kind of moral and ethical progression. Not that there's anything extremely developed going on yet, but there's an undercurrent of philosophy, and I appreciate the recurring motifs of identity, mind and body, where one develops one's ideals, where one comes from at all, all typically worked into the fabric of the action. Which, as far as it goes, is all reasonably well choreographed with attention to strange, specific applications of technique and technology. Which again, falls into recurring manga tropes, but Kishiro actually footnotes bits of the action, semingly really wanting to explain the mechanics of these bodies and world-details. Anyway, I enjoyed this and it seems to be one of the better of its kind.
—Nate D
I finished the whole series last night. As a consequence, I skipped two classes.But anyway, a good book, especially for Asian girls, telling a romantic history with different men, almost all Asian girls would encounter through out their life. The first one is the protective father character: Ido. The second one is Hugo, representing the first lover in middle school: indifferent, and ignorant of what he really wants. The third one is 侯矶亚， like a high school kid in Japan. the forth is Kaos, fragil
—Yufan
this series is my favorite manga series preeeeetty much ever. the story is very well thought out, and when it tries to be deep, i felt it succeeded instead of coming off as something corny and campy because it's a 'comic'. kishiro's art is a little off at first, but watching him settle down with the characters and how drawing them and their expressions, etc. became second nature is a wonderful part of following the story. it's sci-fi meets dystopia meets grunge meets romance meets a ton of other stuff. i love it though, and i think most people will too! :)
—Megan
